The present invention relates to a method of electro-optically inspecting cigarettes.
Before being fed on to a packing machine, the cigarettes coming off a manufacturing machine are usually inspected to determine conformance with a number of functional and dimensional tolerances governing, among other things, the size of the cigarettes, compactness of the tobacco at the open end, and location of both the component parts and printed portions of the cigarette.
Such inspection is usually conducted using a number of photocell assemblies located along the route travelled by the cigarettes, and each designed to supply information relative to a particular characteristic of the cigarette, which information is employed for determining acceptance or rejection of the same.